On my Way.. my first HDR

[ashokmani]

Hello folks,

Please let me know where I went wrong in creating this HDR.

Meta data -

Device - Nikon D60
Lens - 18-55mm
Focal Length - 18mm
Exposure - 0EV
Shutter speed - 1/160
Aperture - F/6.3

I have later changed few attributes using capture NX.

Thanks,

Ashok..

[david335]

Maybe my monitor is off but it seems that the focus is a little off.

[ashokmani]

Probably something happened when I resized the image using Irfanview.

Pls find the pic in Flickr..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9767115@N07/3164367195/


Ashok..

[SarahN]

The colors of the sky are really distracting--what color was it naturally? (I'm assuming not green?)

[david335]

Yea it was the resize, On Flickr it looked fine. But I agree about the sky. It is neat but distracts from the focus.

[ashokmani]

here is the original pic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9767115@N07/3164869961/

You are correct, the green color of the sky is distracting. But I am not sure how to remove it when creating the HDR.

[wheelhot]

Hmm, what were your 3 or x no. of photos exposure level?

What software you used and why is the photo look blurry?

If I were you I would reduce the shutter to 1/100 and open the widest aperture possible

[ashokmani]

I converted the img into HDR from a single RAW file using photomatix.

[wheelhot]

Ahh, well nowonder your image doesn't really look HDR like, for HDR to work, you will need 3 separate images taken at 3 different exposure compensation.

But for now, since you only got 1 image (thankfully you shoot in RAW), go to some photo editing software and slide your exposure level to be overexposed and the second one to be underexposed. So by doing that you will end up with 3 different exposed images of the same shot.

Next time, if your DSLR got exposure bracketing function, use it (for Canon its called AEB, let you select 3 EV ranges (+x, x, -x), not sure what Oly calls this), all you need to do is select the exposure you want (make sure the mid point is right in the middle of the EV level), switch to burst mode and hold the camera while shooting, it will capture 3 images at 3 different exposure so you dont need to keep changing your exposure level for each shot.

So for now do my first tip and try again Good luck!
FYI: HDR stands for High Dynamic Ranging, our eyes is able to see more stuffs then a camera stuffs, like example, we see the sky and the mountain as one subject beautiful scenery, but when a camera snaps the photo, either the sky or the mountain will not be properly exposed. So by taking the same scenery at 3 different exposure compensation level, merge the photos together and you will end up with the same scenery you seen (although it might be slightly different) - properly exposed

[ashokmani]

Thank you so much..

Unfortunately Nikon D60 does not have the bracketing feature. But I did try whatever you said on the adjusting the exp level in the raw file. The results are so different.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9767115@N07/3168086576/

Let me know if something need to done to make this pic better...

Regs,
Ashok